Friday, January 29, 2010

last year of the lousy pretzel???

It's finally here!! Our pretzel dipper. Very close family friend, who I grew up with, as well as my cousin, both became grandmothers' this week. Both baby girls. Sorry, babies aren't as pretty as our pretzel dipper. This thing is the real deal. I'm sure I mentioned, it was shipped, from Germany, in two pieces. So off to the welding shop it went. They did a great job in Germany, marking the way it should go together. I'll make it a point to post a picture of it, here. I promised the folks in Germany, pictures, also. Right after Paczki Day, I'm gonna start looking into, next years' Christkindlmarkt, in the loop. I can't allow you folks of Chicago, to be subjected to those alleged pretzels, another year. You'll thank me later.

Cold kinda chased 'em away yesterday. We did well with sandwiches, and hot chocolate, but otherwise, kinda quiet. Looking forward to warmer days, we made lemon macarons yesterday. Don't matter how far, you've got to come, they're worth the drive. We added blue poppy seeds to the shells, and cooked the a fore mentioned, lemon cremeux, and added it to white chocolate ganache, for the filling. Really pretty. We made strawberry as well.

I happened to catch "Chicago Tonite" on WTTW, last night. Host Phil Ponce had three food bloggers as his guest. They mentioned this will be the year of the macaron. Most interesting, is their mention of how difficult they are to produce. Not so difficult as tricky. I'm gonna email all three of them. Every trip to France, I see more and more. I get the monthly "Cafe-Sweets", magazine from Japan. It's their pastry/chocolate/coffee publication, for professionals. More and more in every issue, macarons. Kinda funny, they profile bakeries and pastry shops in France, Italy, Germany, L.A. and New York. I can't read a lick, other than numbers, and a few address's, once in a while. But, oh the pictures. It's a big, thick issue, all colour photos. I think it's up to $24 an issue, but if I catch one idea, even a small idea, worth every cent. In one issue, they profiled at least fifty macaron shops in Paris. Interesting how different they all are. They also profiled the more prominent macaron shops in Japan. Gonna be big here, soon.

Gotta run, I forgot all about Mr. Christy. I apologized to him in an email. Gotta get started on some more strudel. Goin' out Monday, scouts honor.

2 Comments:

AHHHH A Bakery Blog- You are so tech savvy these days. I would have to say it is the year of the Macaron. You have been ahead of the game! I came all the way to Chicago to take and FPS class with Glacier and made Macs ALL WEEK LONG. I am sad to admit that I didn't make it out to the shop. I was dreaming of ham and cheese croissants. These Lemon Macs sound pretty and delicious. I meant to call upon the Laminatrix but it never happened. I did have dinner with mchapman and our fond memories of rolling croissants came up. A whip creme machine and fresh deli sammies-- so many cool changes. Now I am totally depressed- I know I should have gotten up there. Next time for sure!

melissa, so good to hear from you! i was registered for the glacier class, of which you speak, but decided i couldn't spend four days away from the bakery. been havin' great luck with our macaroons with the exception of chocolate. they taste great but don't look so hot. i'll get 'em figured out. did you ever get your coffee thing going? still in dc?